Featuring: Ace, Ammosart, Ashgar, Belghast, Kodra, Tamrielo, and Thalen
This week, we record one of our shortest shows because, quite honestly, we did not have a ton to talk about. That said, I feel like there were a lot of fun discussions. We start off talking about Forza Horizon 6, as Tam has discovered how fun this series is. After that, we talk a bit about Voidling Bound, a game that a lot of us were not following but are now interested in. Ace discusses Fields of Mistria and talks about how it is very adjacent to Stardew Valley. We also briefly talk about how good Spirit Crossing is. There is this weird new feature in Path of Exile II where a player can sacrifice themselves to give every other player a bonus passive point, and we talk a bit about this design space. Bel talks a bit about Raven RF, and how it does not quite work well, but is completely viable. We have a few quick topics, one of which is how good Pokémon Horizons: Rising Hope has been.
Good Morning, Folks! I’m in the recovery cycle after my last round of chemo. I got my pump disconnected yesterday and then went to sleep around 7 pm and stayed that way all night, with a few brief wakeups here and there. Normally, I crash after coming home from disconnect, but I had someone ring my doorbell several times… which was not enough to rouse me but was enough to break my sleep cycle and cause me to wake up about thirty minutes later. I love my sister-in-law but it annoys the hell out of me that she swung by unannounced. I don’t do drop-in visits that well, especially if I am not expecting someone. I also try to limit my exposure to people when I am in an immune system weak period, because catching something when my immune system cannot fight it off… would be extremely bad.
All of that aside, I am still playing an exceptional amount of Path of Exile II, and mostly swapping back and forth between it and Spirit Crossing for my main gaming time. My focus right now is getting one more level because it will allow me to upgrade my gems to level 19, and also start using the new unique The Raven’s Flock. I managed to pick up a relatively cheap copy of this staff and have been sitting on it, waiting for me to finally be able to use it. Essentially, this is the staff that will give me a righteous fire style aura, but it scales off of minion damage. I currently have +413% increased minion damage, so in theory, this righteous-fire-like aura should be pretty strong. I plan on mostly just swapping directly over to the staff and seeing how well that goes. I will lose a few minions in the process, as my sceptre is giving me quite a bit of spirit.
Other than that, I have really been enjoying working through a number of the atlas quests. My progression has been nowhere near as fast as it would be in POE1, but I am still making steady progress. I’m now up to t11 maps, which pushes me into red maps, and for the most part, everything is still holding up. When I hit 84, I can take all of my gems to 19, which should be a significant boost in damage. My survival seems pretty solid, with a decent amount of energy shield, life, and runic ward helping to keep me alive. I could definitely use more life; however, as I swap gear pieces out, I am going to look for some more T1 life rolls on it. The biggest upgrade that I need to make is swapping over to a minion splash belt, so I can remove that and add a stronger gem in its place.
I’ve also leveled a Spiriwalker through the campaign and am now supported by a big smashy monkey friend. I think this might be too passive for my tastes because right now, I am literally doing nothing other than hitting health potions. The smashy monkey and cocaine bear are doing all of the damage, and I am mostly just applying marks and pain offering as I think about it. This build is absolutely getting nerfed because you should not be able to passively play in a way that you can clear all of the content without actually doing anything. I am an enjoyer of Righteous Fire, but even there, I am constantly using abilities to curse, shield charge, and frost blink. Once you get your monkey… the campaign is a breeze.
The biggest thing that I need right now on that build is levels, and to replace one of my rare companions with something that gives me haste. I really want it to be a monkey, because the quadrilla model attacks extremely well, but haste does not give a clear visual aura, so I keep having to mouse over things… which does not always give me time to mark the beast with tame beast before the monkey kills it. The number of times I have watched the haste beast die before I can capture it… is significant. I wish Tame Beast were something I could throw on my Necromancer build, but unfortunately, I lack the dexterity requirements. So instead I have to wander aimlessly and hope to stumble onto just the right beast.
I have been having quite a bit of fun with this league, but I am really looking forward to the next POE1 league that should, in theory, land in July. I enjoy Path of Exile II, but still feel like Path of Exile is the better game. POE2 is probably better for new players, but if you have only played it, I highly suggest, at some point, trying a POE1 league after learning the ropes. Other than all of this, I really want to ease my way back into Guild Wars 2. I am also playing a bit of Destiny 2 since the recent patch dropped. I am sure I will talk about both of those in the coming weeks. I hope you have an excellent weekend, and drop me a line about what is eating up your gaming time.
Featuring: Ace, Ammosart, Ashgar, Belghast, Kodra, Tamrielo, and Thalen
Hey Folks. We start off this week with a discussion about Life Below, which is an underwater building sim focused on coral reefs and maintaining them. From there, we talk a bit about another one of our patented 11 sads out of 10 games, where you try to keep the last cat in the universe alive. Spirit Crossing has launched on Steam and we are all pretty happy to see it being untethered from mobile-only. We talk about all of the things that we saw at the Summer Games Fest, which are too many individual games to list. We do focus in on one particular game announcement, however, which is Guild Wars 3, and we talk a bit about what we know so far, and more particularly, the fact that the studio released a video committing to keep developing all three games. Kodra and Bel go deep down the rabbit hole of Path of Exile II build craft, and kind of forget that they are on a podcast for a bit. Lastly, we wrap things up with some quick topics.
I’ve been really impressed with my Minions build so far. At the moment, I seem to be able to just do some big chill mapping, as I am now making my way into yellow maps. Essentially, I just walk around casing flame wall, which then summons my raging spirits, while my snipers and vaal guards decimate anything that comes near. If you can solve the survival of a build like this, it rapidly becomes one of the most chill ways to do content. What surprises me is that it is reasonably good at both clearing maps and doing bosses, which I guess makes sense given that I spent so much time playing my minions build in the Mirage league. Essentially, once I solved resistances, everything else has seemingly been gravy. I would love more Life and Energy Shield, so once I finish up picking up minion nodes, I will probably try to buff those things a bit.
I think yesterday I figured out why I don’t enjoy mapping in POE2 as much as I do in POE1. It is that the maps themselves are not as well-designed as the maps in POE1. In order to make prettier maps, they have littered them with all manner of ground clutter that my character just ends up getting caught on. So it feels like I have to pay way more attention to pathing than I ever did in POE1. Sure, there are some tight corridor maps in the original game, but it feels like there are way more wide-open maps as well. Nothing really in POE2 is completely wide open, and it is much harder to do boss rushing strategies since the boss locations vary more than they did in POE1. I think they have tried to improve the mapping significantly, but it still feels like there are way too many choke points in maps, and too many greebles to get caught on.
Right now, I am working towards unlocking both of these nodes, which, in theory, will allow me to progress the central area. Everything in this area requires a t6 or higher map, so it is Yellow or better. It makes me think that once we open the other gates, it will be Red or better maps. What I dig the most about this version of the endgame is that it seems like every single map that I run in this area is giving me points to spend on the Atlas passives. The negative, however, is that there does not appear to be a way to respec your passives. I have no clue how many total passives that I get, but so far it seems like every single map run is giving me incremental progress, so it FINALLY feels as beneficial as mapping in POE1. That was another problem that I had with the old endgame: it required too much progress to get any points, and the points themselves did not feel anywhere near as rewarding as the POE1 Atlas.
I’ve actually rolled an alt as well because I want to play with the nonsense that appears to be the Spiritwalker. I’ve never played a Huntress before, so I am leveling it with a standard crossbow setup with the permafrost bolts, explosive grenade, and herald of ice. So far, it is pretty straightforward, and I am essentially following this pattern until I swap to Spiritwalker and can go tame my beast. I might swap things up earlier, though, when I actually get access to the game beast ability around 22. At that point, I would swap over to a minions hybrid and respec my tree to pick up copious companion nodes. I am not entirely certain I can do the specialization dungeon with crossbows, mostly because I have never tried it. I am doing well enough against both map clear and bosses, so maybe it won’t be too terribly hard. I still have to get through Geonor before finishing up Act 1, so that will be a determining factor for how long I stay with crossbows.
All in all, though, I am enjoying my minions build. The visual clarity is a complete mess, so thankfully, the minions mostly take care of everything. I am setting everything on fire, and then my vaal guards are making everything explode… so I can never actually see anything on the ground. That is the one thing that worries me as I continue leveling, because I will have to watch out for more ground effects. If I notice something shredding my energy shield, I usually try to move out to somewhere clear just in case I am standing in “the bad”. I am curious if any of you are also playing this league, and what your thoughts are. Drop me a line below.
